IfMy interest is in the Canadian fur trade so this is where I am drawing my information from. In Sir George Simpson's "Narrative of a journey round the world during the years 1841 and 1842 " he includes a description of how the canoes were made.

"The canoes, those tiny vehicles of an amphibious navigation, are constructed in the following manner. The outside is formed of the tough thick bark of the birch, the sheets being sewed together with the root of the pine tree split into threads, and the seams being gummed to make them airtight. The gunwales are of pine or cedar, of about three inches square; and in their lower edges are inserted the ribs, made of thin pieces of wood bent to a semicircle. Between the ribs and the bark is a coating of lathing, which, besides warding off internal injury from the fragile covering, serves to impart a firmness to the vessel. These canoes are generally thirty-five feet from stem to stern; and they are about five feet wide in the center, gradually tapering to a point at each end, where they are raised about a foot. When loaded, they draw scarcely 18 inches of water; and they weigh between three hundred and four hundred pounds."

From other readings I have learned that the pine threads were softened before use by being boiled in water. Spruce trees provided the sap which sealed the seams. This sap was heated before being applied with a stick.

Alexander Henry the Younger was a fur trader who traveled the Canadian West from 1799 until his death in 1814. In his journals he notes that the Indians would protect their canoes for long periods of time by burying them in the ground. They would bury them late in the fall before winter struck or when they were going to be away from them for long periods during the summer months.

The birch bark canoe was the primary source of transportation for the Canadian fur trade. The "Canot du Maitre" was built up to 36 feet long, was manned by a crew of up to 12 men and carried upward of 50 individual packs of trade goods or furs. Each pack weighed 90 pounds and a voyageur would carry two or three packs each over a portage. These canoes weighed between 350 and 400 pounds each and drew 18 inches of water when fully loaded. A fully loaded canoe could travel at 5 1/2 miles per hour with the voyageurs paddling at 40 strokes per minute. These canoes were used to move freight between Montreal and Fort William on the western shores of lake Superior

The lighter "Canot du Nord" were smaller and lighter canoes that carried freight across the smaller rivers of western Canada. These canoes had a crew of 5 or 6 men and carried a cargo of 3,000 pounds, all arranged in 90 pound packages.

Sir Alexander Mackenzie used a birch bark canoe in 1789 when he set off to follow a westward flowing river discovered earlier by Peter Pond. This river soon turned North took Mackenzie to the Arctic Ocean instead of the Pacific, and was later named in his honor. In 1893 Mackenzie once again set off searching for a river flowing to the Pacific. He discovered the Fraser River, but heeding the advice of local natives he reached Bella Coola on the Pacific after trekking overland across the Grease Trail.

Simon Fraser used birch bark canoes on his 1808 exploration to the mouth of the Fraser River. Thinking that this river was the famed Columbia, whose headwaters had yet been found, Fraser set off downstream. Ignoring the advice of Indians, where Mackenzie earlier left the river and proceeded overland, Simon Fraser proceeded downstream. Soon he reached the Fraser Canyon. His journal tells of his canoes being dashed among rocks, caught in whirlpools and of scaling sheer rock walls while Indians were at times rolling rocks down on them. His journal is a truly fascinating read.